


The Fox Family Comes to the Athame Store

by BardicRaven



Series: Retail Magicks [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Animal Transformation, Gen, especially in a magickal store, sales is hard work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 07:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: They were a little overenthusiastic to discover their Animal Totem. Fortunately, Jamie of the Athame Store was there to save the day.





	The Fox Family Comes to the Athame Store

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Resilur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resilur/gifts).



“Uhm… hi?” The voice was hesitant, masculine. “Can you help us?”

I looked, blinked, swore under my breath. “I hope so.” Said before I thought, but true enough. Another example of people not reading potion labels correctly, and this one looked like an especially tough case. There was what I judged to be a family in front of us – man, woman and two children, as best I could tell, tho’ they were all wearing a fox’s fur and form at the moment, so it was somewhat hard to tell beyond the very basics.

“Oh.” The voice sounded defeated, and the biggest fox began to herd their family towards the front door.

“Wait.” I called out after them and the family halted, turning back to me. “It’s not hopeless. You just startled me. I’ve never seen a case this strong before.”

The foxes came back towards my corner of the store while I came forward to meet them. Our paths crossed in about the middle of the store and four pairs of bright black eyes stared at me in hope.

“Let me guess,” I said, putting on my professional voice. Whatever, whyever they were here, the main point was that they WERE here, and we at the Athame Store were pledged to help. Whether the potion had been ours or a competitor’s, whether the mistake was in the potion or in the people, it wasn’t in us to turn anyone away. “Spirit Totem Attractor?”

If a fox could be said to look shamefaced, this one did. “Yes.”

“Not that it matters, but ours or another’s?”

He named a competitor who was famous for big words and small quality.

“With respect,” I said, “That was your first mistake. Our Spirit Totem Attractor potions may be a bit more pricey, but we are extremely careful about their manufacture and quality. In future...” I let myself trail off delicately.

“No worries,” the big fox said. “You can be sure we’ll only be getting our potions from here from now on.”

“That’s appreciated. That and a good label-reading would prevent most of the problems I see.” Now, I examined the biggest fox clinically. “Did you take the prescribed amount for the prescribed time?”

Again, the shamefaced look. “No, I’m afraid we didn’t. We did at first, but then nothing seemed to be happening, so we took another dose. Then another, when that still didn’t work. After that, the bottle was empty, so we gave up and went to bed. Then the next morning...” they gestured with one delicate black-tipped paw at their body and those of their family. “...we woke up like this.”

“Well, first, congratulations. Fox is a wonderful Totem to have. Can be a little tricksy from time to time, so you’ll want to be careful, but once we get you squared away, you and your family have a great set of totems to look forward to.”

A sigh reminded me that we weren’t there yet. “And for now, let’s get you back to human so you can go off and enjoy your Foxes without resembling them quite so much.”

Another small noise, this time of relief, mixed with humor, and I began. It was a hard-fought battle – Fox apparently wasn’t as eager to have Their followers returned to human as I’d hoped, but eventually, I was able to persuade Fox that They would be better served by followers who were human as opposed to wearing a Fox’s furr.

“There you go,” I said when the argument had been won and I faced a family of four humans once more.

“Thank you,” the man said as he shook my hand fervently.

“You’re welcome. I’d say any time, but I hope that I’ll never see you again except as a human customer.” I smiled to show that I meant it, but also meant no offense beyond it.

“No worries – we don’t plan to come here again for anything other than to shop.” He hesitated. “I’d like to thank you for all your work today. Would you be willing to allow me to buy you a drink at Farseer’s?”

I thought about it. Technically, we weren’t supposed to take rewards from customers, but it had been a long afternoon and I was thirsty, and for more than just water.

“Sure. Meet you there at 7?”

“We’ll reserve the corner booth.” He turned back to his family. “Come on, everybody, let’s go celebrate.”

I watched them go out the door and then thought about the resignation letter I’d been thinking about for some time now. It had been hard work this afternoon, and not work that was the result of anything we’d done, but still, it felt good to have helped this family who’d been in such need.

And Farseer’s was far from a dive bar, either. I looked forward to a good drink after good work.

And with that, I went back to my tasks about the store, cleaning , tidying, stocking, musing all the while that you just never knew what a day was going to be like at the Athame Store. And that maybe, it would be worth staying here just a little bit longer.


End file.
